Karma Slave
by Prince-Vermin
Summary: Neku's found himself dragged back into the UG. Is the person he finds there his friend or his enemy? A slightly different take on 'Neku as the Conductor'. Probably will be Josh/Neku in later chapters.


Chapter 1: D.O.A.

From the moment I opened my eyes I felt it. It was the same sensation you might get when you first step into a loud cyber club. The rave music pulsing like a heartbeat, drum and bass hammering away at your insides in a way that is both painful and arousing all in the same breath. The heat of bodies pressing in on you from all around- strangers who'll dance with you like you're lovers. I would have equated it to that if I had known what it was like. But I've never been to any clubs. I'd barely ever left my house after school hours really, even as I got older. I was old enough to go- to be social and interact and drink in these places but… I didn't.

And now I regret it a little. Because now? I'm dead.

Truth be told, the dying part wasn't so bad. I'd done it twice before already, although I was a little bit worried about what might come after this time. This time was rather a lot different from the other two. No guns involved, at least. I hadn't expected it. Someone had passed me on the street. Someone who I swore I should have recognized. He had lavender eyes that sparkled and in a single glance made me believe that he could take on the world. And I thought his name had been on my lips- like I should have known it. He reached out and touched my arm as he brushed past me. His hand was like ice. So entranced with the sudden headache and the desire to remember just any little thing about why I knew this pretty boy was I that I didn't even notice as I stepped off of the curb and into the street.

The guy driving screeched to a stop, but not fast enough. Not for me anyway. I'm not sure that I was hurt bad enough to die. I was sure that there were broken bones, and I was bleeding. But it felt like my very life was leaking out of that place on my arm, the icy coldness spreading further and further. He watched. Those preternatural eyes were wide and wild- like they had been the day he shot me. But then, I still couldn't remember his name. I watched his full, too-pretty-for-a-boy lips twist into an almost Cheshire grin before I lost consciousness completely.

And then I was here. And I remembered.

"Joshua." No answer. I was alone, and that music- _where was it coming from?_ Was everywhere. Pulsing as though it were bleeding from the city street itself. I was aware of the people around me, but I knew that if I was dead- on his plane- then they couldn't see me anyway. I even reached up and jerked the headphones off of my ears, as though maybe I had forgotten that my mp3 player was on and had somehow cranked it to max volume. It didn't help.

"Joshua, you bastard! Where are you?" I called out again, this time louder. I was clutching my head despite myself. The noise was overwhelming.

I could see him coming, approaching me like some pale specter through the crowd. The insanity from that moment was gone from his face, replaced with the cool, calm smirk and the sparkle of amusement in his eyes that I was so familiar with. How many years had it been?

"Oh good. You finally remember me." He said airily and looked down at me where I was crouched. Somehow, it was like I could pick him out over the rest of the noise- like he came through clearly and on his own frequency.

"What happened?" I demanded.

"Looks like you've come to fulfill your destiny, dear."

I growled wordlessly at him, because it was all I could bring myself to do at that point. It was deafening, and it took several long moments of tugging at the ends of my unruly hair before I could speak.

"What is that _sound_?" I demanded. At that, I was sure that if Joshua had been a super villain, his next words would have been something like: 'Excellent…' and there would have been copious evil laughter. Instead, he just smirked at me and shrugged.

"You don't know? It's Shibuya." He said simply. "You don't look like you're feeling well, Neku-kun."

Sure enough, the moment he finished speaking I felt like I was going to wretch. Instead, I just collapsed forward and my vision started to swim.

"Don't worry. It happens to everyone at first." Joshua leaned down now and extended his pale hands to cover my eyes.

When I opened them again, I was in a gray room. Everything was slate gray. The first thing I noticed was that it was blissfully silent. I almost wept with joy. Until I noticed how stiff my neck and shoulders were. I shifted, and found that I had been placed in a stone seat at the foot of a huge monolith. It took me a while to recognize the Room of Reckoning. There was a bitter taste in my mouth as I let the memories of my last visit to this room flood back to me, and I hung my head. My fingertips moved absently over the armrests of the throne as I sucked in a shaking breath.

Joshua. Mr. Hanekoma. They'd left me behind when I'd needed them most…So why was I here now?

"You're awake." Joshua giggled as he all but morphed out of the shadows behind the seat of the city's Composer. With that in mind, I found myself wanting to stretch my legs very badly. So I got to my feet only to find Joshua's hand planted on my chest to shove me back down. He straddled my lap facing me, eyes defiant.

"Do you have any idea what you are now?" He crooned at me. My mouth suddenly felt dry.

"I…Tch. Yeah. I'm dead." I responded curtly.

"No, no, no. Neku-kun. You're more than dead. If you'll notice, you're not a player." The most terrifying thing about Joshua's expression was the fact that there was little if any malice in it. He seemed to me like a delighted child more than anything.

"Get off of me." I sighed.

"Don't be so defensive, _Conductor-kun." I knew what that meant. It made me suddenly feel rather sick again. _

"_No. No, no way, Josh." _

"_Why not? It's not like I could let Them have you. The Angels. They try to take everything from me." He let out a theatrical sigh. _

"_Where's Mr. H?"_

"_Erased. For falling." I thought he had gone silent just to avoid me. To keep me uninvolved. CAT. Shibuya had lost its Angel. I felt tears gathering in my eyes, and there was something beyond Joshua's mask, as though he was begging me not to cry. _

"_Why…?" That…It just didn't make any sense._

"_He tried to have us killed, Neku." Joshua said shortly. "I was pardoned, you know. For pointing out the culprit behind the Taboo Sigil." My blood ran cold. He had turned his own Producer over to the cosmic 'They'. I looked away from him. Joshua slowly clambered off of me and got to his feet. He crossed his arms and watched me._

"_You have a job to do now, Neku-kun. I waited to replace Megumi just for you." He said, waving it off as though it were nothing. It wasn't nothing. This was too much to take in in such a short amount of time. _

"_Why? I don't…" Understand. Don't want to. Why me?_

"_Karma works in mysterious ways, Neku Sakuraba." The nasty little lilt had left his voice, and Joshua was serious. "Now, tell me what I am."_

"_What? What do you mean?" That was a strange request. _

"_You are my Conductor. Now what am I?" I didn't like this. Not at all. My voice broke when I began to speak._

"_My Composer." There was the slightest flicker of something I didn't recognize in those lavender eyes as he watched me. _

"_Yes," He moved closer again, those thin fingers that didn't feel so cold to me anymore dancing across my face. "And you'll have all the time you need to adjust to that fact. Do you know why I reaped you then and there?" he asked slowly. I shook my head._

"_No…?"_

"_Because it was fitting for you to die like that. In an accident. One that I caused. One that was my fault." The lack of understanding probably showed clearly on my face. I was bemused, and Joshua's hand cupped the side of my face._

"_You killed me, Neku." The only person I had ever- and then it hit me, and my stomach felt like a block of ice had settled in it. _

"_No." I didn't want to say it. Didn't want to believe it._

"_Do you think it was coincidence that I chose you? That I killed you?" He'd had the pleasure of watching me die three times now. _

"_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The words came out as a whimper._

"_Oh, I know you are. But you didn't do a very good job of making it up to me. And how sad. Our dear, dear CAT is no more. He betrayed us. Now all we have is each other." _

_When he died, my entire life stopped. I gave up living the day that my only friend was hit by a car. My only answer to Joshua's insistence was a quiet sob._

"_I don't blame you like you blame you, Neku-kun. I just wanted you to keep on living for both of us. It only took me a few years to make it to Composer. Because I knew I could see you again. It wasn't in my calculations that the Angels would change your memories when I ascended. Can you forgive me for all I've done? I did it for you." That strange, madness tinged glint was back in his eyes, and I didn't know what to do. _

"_Josh. I…I missed you." I choked out, even though all I wanted to do was shove him away from me. I couldn't hate him if he was the one I'd missed for all of these years._

"_I missed you too. And now, I won't have to." Joshua said quietly, his gaze distant. "Stand up, Neku." _

_And I couldn't ignore him- it was a compulsion to obey his words down to my very core. Was this what it meant to be the Conductor? I wanted to run- to hide and cry until I woke up from this nightmare. But I did as I was told and rose to my feet. Joshua was standing too close. He lifted his hands suddenly, and moved his fingertips through the air as though directing some invisible orchestra. As he did so, I was seized by excruciating pain. It felt as though my shoulder blades were on fire. But it stopped just as quickly as it had begun, and the Composer stepped back. He raised a hand to his chin, seemingly admiring whatever he had done. _

"_Impressive Neku-kun. What I'd expect from Shibuya's brightest." I craned my neck to see what Joshua was talking about, and was met with what I recognized as Reapers' wings. They were intricate, and there were at least three pairs of them._

"_What did you do to me?" I breathed._

"_Just helped the process along, dear." There was an air of pulsating darkness- a kind of energy that I didn't recognize. They rolled off of the newly gained appendages with a rhythm that felt like a heartbeat. So much for that blessed silence. But the more I listened, and the more I became accustomed to it, I began to realize that this rhythm was mine- my own song. It was steady and strong and purposeful, and it made me realize that maybe this was what I was meant to be- to become._

"_Neku-kun~," Joshua said suddenly, his voice taking on a sing-song quality. He seemed to have relaxed quite suddenly, and again that strange glint in his eyes was gone. "They were going to take you from me, you know. And it's just not fair. I'd been watching over you for so long, after all." _

_The pieces of my puzzle were slowly beginning to make sense. _

_It had been weeks ago that I'd been on my way home from work and had suddenly felt compelled to visit the old mural in Udagawa. I didn't go there much anymore- too much stress and sadness in the memories, and I'd put them behind me. Of course, my memories of the UG had been altered, and that left me thinking that those feelings belonged entirely to the nameless face I'd lost. _

_On that day, I had a strange daydream that my friend was running towards me with a gun in his hand. I had shaken it off quickly and started back home. It was relatively quiet- most of the salary men still pushing paper and I was just a barista getting off of a midshift. Why did I have anything to worry about? But the entire way home I'd felt somebody on my heels, and even heard light footsteps. I'd wondered if it was a Zashiki Warashi type ghost, and said out loud "Don't follow me home." Strangely enough, the sounds stopped and I wondered who was haunting me. Ever since that strange missing gap of nearly a month's time when I was fifteen years old, I'd wondered why I'd been so haunted. _

"_You were haunting me." Joshua didn't seem to notice the momentary lapse as I covered that train of thought. _

"_If you really want to call it that. Yes, I suppose I was." Why was he still standing so close to me? I backed up a bit, at least until my calves hit the throne behind me. _

"_Why? I was just your Proxy. Just another piece in your damned Game." My expression read my uncertainty. Part of me still trusted him. Still believed that he was my partner. And now I knew that he was and always had been my friend._

"_You were my Proxy, and now you're my Conductor. You were simply the only one I could imagine for the job, dear." He giggled, but the mirth didn't carry to his eyes. I secretly wondered if even Joshua could be wondering in this moment if he'd made a mistake. Maybe that would be my only power over him for the rest of eternity. _

"_So…I'm undead, and in charge of all of your paperwork or whatever you tell me to do." _

"_Right. Now, Neku-kun. I think you should rest. Your new form has much to adjust to. Come, now. I'll take you to our room."_

"_Our room." I responded emotionlessly. Joshua raised an amused eyebrow._

"_Why, yes. The Composer and Conductor work so closely together…It's always been this way."_

_I should have known. I followed him despite my apprehension, trying my best not to remember a certain Megumi Kitaniji. _


End file.
